SP-24 Use of Partnerships for
Managing Invasive Species in and around National Parks

Official Short Title: Invasive
Species

Sponsors:

States: None

Subcommittee: National Parks

Status: 08-09-2005

Oversight hearing by Subcommittee on National Parks, in Hilo,
Hawaii, to gather information regarding invasive species. Specific
areas of interest include challenges and needs of the National
Park Service, existing legislation, legislative solutions, and use
of partnerships for managing invasive species in and around
National Parks. (37)

Important "Invasive
Species" information for the Senate Subcommittee on
National Parks and for the Senate Environment and Natural
Resources Committee

To all members of the Senate Subcommittee on National Parks, and
also the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources:

"Invasive Species" is Junk Science

August 11, 2005

The 470-word version of my commentary (below) has been published
at least 51 times, to date.

"Invasive Species" is
Junk Science

August 4, 2005

470 words

"Invasive Species" is Junk Science. That's right,
and I can prove it.

"Invasive Species" can be almost any plant or
animal -- deemed "native" or "non
native" -- that "invades" a place it is not
welcome. The newly sprouting layer of bureaucracy,
regulation, and government graft stems, not from a desire to
curb "invasives," but from what is seen as a
golden opportunity to tap into many more taxpayer dollars,
while further regulating taxpayers and draining property
rights.

How can this be, you ask? The media is screaming about
"invasive species" from every corner, as though it
were a foreign army landing upon our shores. It isn't.

There are already in place regulations and statutes
governing the use of noxious weeds and other undesirables.
All that need be done is to enforce those laws and revisit
species in different areas as they wear out their welcomes
or cross the line from "ornamental" to obnoxious.
Some species of flora and fauna are welcome in one area and
dreaded in another. That is no excuse to forbid them all.

Congress recently struck all "invasive species"
language from the Transportation Bill, SAFE-TEA. Why? Such
onerous wording would have made all highway projects fair
game for those seeking to stop them by merely claiming
"invasive species" were present. Learning about
the junk science embodied by the "invasive
species" frenzy saved America from another layer of
unnecessary and duplicitous regulatory imprisonment.

Sound familiar? This is the big brother to "endangered
species," that thirty-something year mess that has
gutted logging, ranching, commercial fishing, etc., in
America and made private property rights little more than a
doormat for litigation-happy "environmental"
groups who say they're "protecting" or
"saving" this or that "poster
species." Many species dubbed "endangered"
actually aren't, but are simply used to further something
increasingly recognized as a rush to acquire vast areas of
land and control of water.

Those most incensed about "protecting" and
"restoring" "habitat" wax utterly
silent when massive conflagrations burn our mismanaged,
stagnating forests by the millions of acres -- which also
incinerate "endangered" flora and fauna.
Where is the hue and cry when countless "Smokey
Bears" lose their lives in the face of these fires?
Such "protection" of "habitat" is
something that most plants and animals certainly don't need.
In fact, these out of control wildfires actually endanger
much more than they "help." Junk science strikes
again.

I make no claims to be an expert on "invasive
species" or science, but my daily research has for
years provided knowledge that "something's wrong"
with the "best available science" being used to
strip property rights from honest citizens. When "best
available" bears the aroma of last week's fish wrapper,
junk science has likely been used.

Perhaps the real "invasive species" are those
driving such agendas to create more wealth and power. Please
consider.

http://www.protectyourwaters.net/news/display.php?id=3116 Points
to:
http://www.hawaiireporter.com/story.aspx?9de1d6ba-9133-4bd0-85cc-d1b1c2f468fd Posted
as "News: What's Hot" at the "STOP
AQUATIC HITCHHIKERS! - New ANS Task Force Public
Awareness Campaign." Here's what's at the bottom of
all their web pages: "The
Stop Aquatic Hitchhikers web site is part of the ANS
Task Force public awareness campaign and is
sponsored by the U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S.
Coast Guard." The "Contact Us"
part of their website is "still being
developed" -- i.e., they cannot be contacted. ANS,
by the way, stands for "Aquatic Nuisance
Species," but at their home page, they narrow that
definition: "Clarification
of Terms: For the purposes
of this campaign and the related materials, Aquatic
Hitchhikers are defined as non-native, harmful aquatic
plants, animals or microscopic organisms that can
readily be transported to other waters via popular
recreational activities. Also, different terms will be
used interchangeably throughout the campaign to describe
aquatic hitchhikers. These terms include: aquatic
nuisance species, ANS, aquatic invasive species and
non-native, harmful aquatic species. Campaign
sponsors use these multiple terms to facilitate a better
understanding about the issue and to assist with the
ease of your reading." Also at this
website/page is a definition of Recreational Activities:
Boating, Fishing, Swimming,
Waterfowl Hunting, SCUBA Diving or Snorkeling,
Windsurfing, Seaplane Operations, Personal Watercraft
Use, Recreational Bait Harvesting. Source: http://www.protectyourwaters.net
This is also at the ANS home page: "Thanks
to the U.S. EPA for developing the initial Task Force
web site."

I ask that you consider -- carefully -- ANY legislation
that accepts the replacement of "noxious" with
"non-native" or alien, or makes
"native" a synonym for "beneficial"
and "non-native" a synonym for
"invasive" or bad.

No such wording should be included in any legislation,
when "noxious" already covers this issue
without resorting to the specious and false pairing of
"non-native" with "invasive
species."

There are many beneficial species (think Ivy League
colleges, ground covers to prevent soil erosion, the
flowering cherry trees of Washington, D.C., which are
decidedly NON-native, etc.), including the gamut of
economic sensibility and sensory delights found in
plants and animals (think French poodle, Siamese cat,
English walnut, Arabian horse, day lilies, Asiatic
lilies, and so much, MUCH more) that do not stand up to
the false definition of "native." The species
content of international shipping ballast water is
already well-covered by "noxious species"
legislation.

U.S. Senator Michael DeWine ("R"-OH) is using
junk science to promote unnecessary regulation overlays
using "invasive species" wording in proposed
legislation. I ask that you not follow his lead, but
champion instead and UTILIZE the "noxious"
wording already in place and simply awaiting use.

One notable paragraph of related interest:

A few years ago, Sen. DeWine also obsessed on seeking to
make homeless a 223,692-acre area of Ohio's best farm
ground that has been peerlessly farmed by Amish,
Mennonite and other farmers for two hundred years --
ostensibly to "save" us from "urban
sprawl" by installing a federal wildlife refuge by
using the false premise that we had "possible"
"habitat" for the allegedly
"endangered" "Indiana bat." While we
were successful in stopping that onslaught, the same
seven-score list of "partners" that have
called us everything from "political
footballs" to "holdouts for the highest
bidder" continue their campaign to rid this
beautiful, fertile and abundantly producing farm country
of us by switching "lead agencies" to the EPA
and the lead "Act" to the Clean Water Act. We
don't have "impaired waters" here and it is
utterly Wrong to promote that falsehood, yet we are
still subjected to voucher-signing, self-proclaimed
"environmentalists" and
"conservationalists" from urban counties and
colleges who keep telling us that we "need"
their expertise -- while they tout 1,500-foot unmowed,
untended and unkempt "buffers" from All
streams and watercourses, including Manmade drainage
ditches for our hydric soils, and including Intermittent
streams that have moisture in them for just two or three
months per year. These out-of-area "instant
experts" even call little whipstitches of streams
that one can easily step across "navigable
waters"! The only boat that could navigate these
"navigable waters" is the TidyBowl boat! Yet,
we are still plagued by these two-legged and very much
"invasive species." We don't come to the
cities and tell them how to landscape their yards or
window boxes. We know our work well; if we did not, the
land would long ago have been stripped of its ability to
grow food and other sustenance.

Creating another totally unnecessary layer of regulation
built upon the ever-shifting sand of "native /
non-native" or "invasive species" is
subjecting American voters to nothing more than illusory
freedom. Don't do it, folks. It's not only bad for the
vast majority, it's also wrong to its very core.

The short version, which to my knowledge remains
unpublished, follows below. Your comments, questions,
etc., are encouraged and welcomed!

"Noxious
species” describes any species that
"invades" an unwelcome place.

Shouted
from every corner, “invasive species” are
portrayed as a foreign army landing upon our shores.
They aren't.

"Invasive
Species" is Junk Science.

Congress
recently struck all "invasive species"
language from the Transportation Bill because highway
projects would have become fair game simply by
claiming the presence of "invasive species.”

Current
regulations already govern noxious species. Something's
wrong with "best available science" being
used to reinvent noxious weeds and expand
"invasive species" to include everything
that's not "native."

=====

Official -- but
inaccurate and misleading -- Definitions:

Invasive Species - An alien species whose
introduction does or is likely to cause economic or
environmental harm, or harm to human health. An
alien species includes, with respect to a particular
ecosystem and species, its seeds, eggs, spores, or
other biological material capable of propagating
that species that is not native to that ecosystem
(Executive Order #13112). http://www2.srs.fs.fed.us/strategicplan/view_and_submit_comment.asp?ID=52